The Telesummit Invite: Misunderstanding Relationship Marketing or ?

UserNetworkRecently I was invited to be a guest on a telesummit by someone I don’t personally know.

The invite was well-written, professional and stated that I’d be a great match for the topic (and I am). I followed up with a few questions:

  • when is it — needed to know if it would fit into my calendar
  • what’s the process — how much promotion was expected
  • can she share anyone else who has already accepted — gives me an idea of who else in in the Summit

She quickly responded with answers to all of the above.  Everything was reasonable (she didn’t expect daily emails to my community or anything unusual).

Then it came. . .”must have minimum 8,000 people on list”.

I don’t.

I responded and let her know that I don’t meet the 8,000 minimum and so would have to decline and waited to see the response, all the while thinking she’d ask me some info about my community.  After all, she reached out to me for a reason.

Her response was well-worded and nice and essentially thanked me and said “maybe next time”.

This is where it became clear to me that she doesn’t understand relationship marketing or, if she does understand it, is choosing to ignore it for purposes of her telesummit.  Questions she could have asked before ruling me out:

  • do you have an engaged community (aka “a quality list”)
  • do you have an active social media platform and would you be willing to speak about the telesummit in your posts
  • are there any other outlets that you’d be willing to share information about the telesummit — how about Google Currents, iTunes, Better Business Bureau Blog, Solo-e, my own blog, the Classes/Events page of my site to name a few?

But she asked none of these.

She never learned that I have an above-average open rate, have sold out 12 of my last 14 programs, have a 94% client retention rate and more.  For her, it was all about the *list size*.

It’s not the size, it’s the quality that matters.  Those who believe “size is everything” are woefully missing the point.

I’d love to hear your thoughts below.